


oh, maybe, you could devastate me

by remuslupin



Category: Dane Gang - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 07:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9061408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remuslupin/pseuds/remuslupin
Summary: in which harry and lucien both get a second chance at a first love.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eggsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggsky/gifts).



> MERRY CHRYSLER, SKY
> 
> not much to say with this one! it's a tumblr-inspired au where everything your soulmate writes on their skin shows up on yours, too.
> 
> title taken from "hurricane," by halsey.

Harry is twenty-one years old and completely hungover the first time it happens.

It’s midday, and he’s still lying languidly in the bed that is much too large for comfort in an apparent attempt to ascertain how long he can remain tucked away in his bedroom before someone comes looking for him. The lingering silence in his room is shattered by the slow rustling of sheets as he shifts his legs atop the mattress, and for a moment, he finds that the allure of going back to sleep may just win him over.

He’s just heaved out what seems to be the upteenth sigh, and blindly raises his arms up above his head to stretch them out before finally opening his eyes, and furrowing his brows as his gaze settles on… A flower.

“The Hell?” He whispers, immediately drawing his arm close and rubbing insistently at the mark (even though there’s hardly any use-- not when it has clearly been drawn on with permanent marker). It takes a moment, but Harry eventually gathers the strength to roll over until he’s sliding from the bed and his feet are hitting the floor. With a residual gait from his drunken state during the previous night, he makes his way towards the desk located by the window and snatches up a marker of his own to hastily shade over the symbol.

It’s dangerous to start assuming things so quickly-- especially with the past that Harry’s had.

When he collapses into bed once more, however, marker still in hand, he’s gazing directly at his forearm when another flower is scrawled next to the first (which is now nothing more than a collection of nonsensical scribbles, thanks to Harry). His intended whisper of various expletives is caught in his throat as he stares, and he’s quick to pop the marker’s cap off before connecting the tip of the pen with his arm once more.

He spends minutes (many more than necessary, if he’s being completely honest with himself) trying to think of something suitable to say, but when his pen disconnects from his skin, the resulting words are rather childish.

_Stop drawing on me, idiot._

It’s a test.

As Harry sits there in the near-darkness of his bedroom, he quick to assert that he’s not scared (he is). With each moment that passes, he tries to tell himself that holding his arm up so close to his face that he begins to go cross-eyed is hardly going to determine whether or not he’ll get a reply (he does it anyway).

When he finally receives a response, it isn’t exactly anything along the lines of the words that he’d been hoping to first exchange with his soulmate.

_You will be alone always and then you will die._

The silence seems to hang on Harry’s shoulders heavily as he squints down at the words for a moment or two. It’s… Well, it feels strangely _familiar,_  rather than foreboding.

Hang on.

His phone is ripped mercilessly from its charging station, and he is quick to type the statement into Google before letting out a triumphant snort when his suspicions are proved correct.

“‘Every morning the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out… You will be alone always and then you will die,’” are the words Harry reads aloud from the poetry website. Eyes narrowing, his phone is soon tossed carelessly onto his sheets so that he may pick up his marker once more.  

 _Siken? Really?_ Pretentious ass.

_It would seem I’ve been matched with an intellectual. Thank God._

Almost immediately, he rolls his eyes as a scoff rushes past his lips. _Even if I wasn’t, you’d still be stuck with me._

It’s not exactly the best way to bond-- but Harry’s always had an awful temper; this person is just going to have to get used to it. He shoves his arms beneath his pillow and makes a quick resolution to wear long sleeves for the rest of the day, but his curiosity eventually wins out. When he moves his forearm into view once more, the written reply causes him to heave out yet another tired heave of his shoulders as he lets out a frustrated sigh.

_Unfortunately._

Fucking soulmates.

\-----

Once they (mostly Harry) are both calm enough to uphold both ends of a conversation without inserting any expletives or allowing their tempers to leak into their responses, the pair exchange basic niceties with the use of their arms. Soon enough, Harry finds out that his soulmate’s name is Lucien, he lives in New York City too, and he’s also twenty-one.

It would be almost too easy to narrow him down to a page of names and addresses based on that information alone (it’s what his father had done with his mother), but Harry eventually decides that it would take the fun out of it.

He isn’t usually one to take up a challenge like this-- to get to know Lucien slowly, rather than appear at his door with roses and chocolates accompanied by a demand that they fall in love on _his_ terms-- but it’s a change to his usual pace of rushed romances that are filled with a flurry of alcohol and mistakes that had been realised too late, and Harry learns to welcome this change.

\-----

After a few weeks, Lucien tells Harry that he isn’t ready to meet him in person just yet.

He’s had some kind of bad experience before. Some guy had a one-sided soulmate bond with him, and while Lu’s marks showed up on his body, it was never reciprocated. _It fucked both of us up, especially since we’d been friends. Him more than me, I think._

When Harry asks where he is now, the answer he gets is soon scrawled rather slowly across his forearm. _He's dead._ As he continues to survey the reply, further explanation appears. _I didn't kill him, if that's what you're wondering._

Almost unconsciously, Harry begins to wonder whether all of Lucien’s hasty flowers and scrolling displays of penmanship continue to adorn the man’s body like expressions of sorrow even as he lies in his grave.

_How did he die, then?_

_The problem with you seems to be that you’re smart, but you’re not smart enough. Learn how to take a hint._

At this rate, Lucien is going to give Harry premature wrinkles-- but he seeks to answer his own question as his eyes run over their previous exchanges, fingertips trailing close behind.

 _It fucked both of us up,_ are the words that finally click the answer into place for Harry. _Him more than me._ Oh.

\-----

It takes a long time for Harry to finally reveal that an identical scenario had been forced upon himself a few years earlier. _His name was Peter,_ he writes with trembling hands that wish to scratch the name from his skin as soon as it’s been inked in-- there's always a chance that removing the mark will also erase every memory that Harry has of Peter’s hasty shopping list appearing on the back of his own hand, of his excitement at the realisation and the subsequent pain in his heart as it tore into half upon realising that Pete hadn't received any of the tentative doodles that Harry had scrawled across his own palm in reply.

His best friend had been matched with someone else. A girl. Pretty, blonde, normal. In response, Harry had told himself that it was fine-- that he didn’t do _complicated,_  anyway.

But his feelings towards Pete had been anything but complicated, really.

In the end, the marks had faded, and nothing else had replaced them. After Peter, Harry hadn’t expected to see someone else’s words decorate his body ever again. He’d heard of people having more than one soulmate throughout their lives, but hadn’t thought that he’d be deserving enough to attain a second chance.

Apparently, he and Lucien had both been a little lucky in the end (or perhaps just deserving of each other).

\-----

They talk at the strangest times-- ultimately, it’s when they need each other the most.

In an apparent act of fate, Harry wakes up at an ungodly hour one morning to find that Lucien is drunk beyond reason and alone and needs advice, needs a friend to comfort him so that he won’t turn to the cigarettes that have burnt his skin multiple times before in an attempt to feel something, _anything_ other than the loneliness that had encircled his heart ever since his father had walked out of his home and never returned. He’s not used to the whole ‘comfort’ thing, but he gives it a try anyway.

When the conversation slowly evolves from pain and hurt and _regret_ to a debate on the complete ridiculousness of modern consumerism, Harry knows that he’s done his job.

Conversely, Harry finds comfort in Lucien when he’s waiting to enter the boardroom of Oscorp days later, the weight of his father’s death hanging over his shoulders like a suit that is far too big as he sits by a window and rolls up his sleeve in search of a distraction.

Instead of a blank canvas, he finds lines of poetry that stir certain emotions in his chest that are unlike anything he’s ever felt before, and he can’t stop the small smile that spreads across his lips when he raises his other hand to trace the delicate curves of the vowels and edges of the consonants. For once, Harry stops thinking about what Norman would say upon finding out that he’d been paired with _another_ boy, or the disappointment his father would undoubtedly harbour due to the way he’s decided to run the company. He’s _happy_ , and he stays that way until Felicia enters the room to inform him that his employees are ready for him.

\-----

On one particular Wednesday afternoon, Harry finds himself stepping into a Starbucks branch to escape the usual chill that sweeps through the city a few days before Christmas. It’s not the place he’s used to visiting when it comes to fulfilling his caffeine needs-- most of the staff at his regular haunt greet him by name and remember his coffee order-- but he’s due to attend a meeting in a nearby building in fifteen minutes, and he’s desperate for an Eggnog Latte.

A shiver ripples through his body as he steps into the space (which is warm in both atmosphere and temperature), but soon feels relaxed enough to withdraw his gloved hands from the pockets of his jacket. His search for enough single dollar notes to fulfil the amount needed for his order begins as soon as he steps into the line leading up to the counter, but Harry is soon distracted by a loud voice that sounds from across the room.

He’s blonde. He’s wearing a disgustingly long coat and a maroon scarf, and his hands move exuberantly when he speaks to the barista from his position at the front of the order line (it almost gives Harry a feeling that he isn’t simply talking about coffee orders). His laugh echoes throughout the room and settles comfortably around Harry’s ribcage as if it had been made to fit in the space where his heart is, and the brunette just _knows_ that it’s him.

His voice entrances him like music, and Harry has to take a moment to wonder how the Hell someone like Lucien was matched with someone like _him._

He looks down at his bare wrist every minute or so while he waits for his order. It’s kind of endearing, actually-- Harry’s heart swells when he realises, and subsequently begins to wonder whether or not he unconsciously does the same (and if so, do people notice? Do they smile, too? Or do they simply roll their eyes at the rather unsubtle hint towards a newfound bond and move on?).

He can’t bring himself to look away from the young man even as his hands hastily dive back into his pockets to search for the pen that he usually keeps in his jacket, and when he withdraws the writing tool, he’s quick to uncap the lid with a firm grasp. When the lid falls to the floor with a clatter, Harry doesn’t bother to pick it up-- rather, he’s much too busy with his current task of thinking about what he could possibly say, what he could possibly write that won’t make his soulmate think that he’s being a complete stalker.

_The music they’re playing in here sucks._

\--Well, he tried.

He almost doesn't realise he's moving out of the line and towards the counter until he has come to an abrupt halt in front of the blonde, and it’s as if he's been drawn towards him by an unseen force-- although, Harry wouldn't be surprised if the entire world felt like this; if every living being found themselves happily orbiting around the magnetic pull of the miniature sun, the Apollo reincarnate on their undeserving Earth who is currently standing before him.

Lucien’s brows furrow as he reads what Harry has written on his wrist, and he turns to look around the store with such grace that Harry thinks that he could almost be mistaken for living marble as he draws close. This new vantage point from which he may look at the blonde with a fresh view gives him the strangest urge to reach up and brush away the stray flakes of snow that are smattered lightly across his shoulders.

Though he seems quite confused at first, his soulmate is smiling as he glances from the writing on his own arm to the pen in Harry’s hands. After taking a hesitant step forward, he reaches for Harry’s own forearm and gazes down at it once he has willingly surrendered the limb to the blonde's grasp.

When he has found the confirmation that he had been searching for (the childish complaint, still standing out strikingly against Harry’s pale skin in the place where he’d initially scrawled it on his wrist), Lucien looks up with an expression so startlingly _happy_ that Harry almost keels over.

While he is actively resisting the urge to reach out, to voice his soul's insistent cry of “oh, _there_ you are. I’ve been looking for you forever,” Lucien saves him from the embarrassment of saying anything particularly sappy by chiming in with a teasing opinion of his own.

“I’ll have you know that White Christmas is a _classic,_ Harry.”

**Author's Note:**

> a review/kudos is always appreciated!


End file.
